Discredited chronic fatigue researcher in California jail

Patients rally around Judy Mikovits, accused of theft

November 22, 2011|By Trine Tsouderos, Chicago Tribune reporter

Judy Mikovits, who was fired from her job Sept. 29 at at the Whittemore Peterson Institute, awaits an arraignment hearing Tuesday in California after her arrest Friday. (David B. Parker, Reno Gazette-Journal)

Two years ago, researcher Judy Mikovits was riding high atop a wave of promise.

She had published one of the most discussed papers of the year in one of the most prestigious scientific publications in the world.

Her team's findings were hailed as a potential breakthrough for an illness — chronic fatigue syndrome — that had long frustrated researchers. She was invited to speak at scientific conferences around the globe. Adoring patients crowded her at her talks.

In a stunning twist, Mikovits was arrested on Friday, and spent five days in a California jail cell, held without bond. She was released Tuesday after an arraignment hearing, according to court records. An arrest warrant issued by University of Nevada at Reno police listed two felony charges: possession of stolen property and unlawful taking of computer data, equipment, supplies or other computer-related property.

She was fired in September, and this month her former employer filed a lawsuit alleging she had wrongfully taken lab notebooks, a computer and other proprietary data. Other researchers have discredited her work, and the journal Science, which published her study, is investigating whether the data were manipulated.

The only constant is the patients who continue to rally around her.

"Remember that we are behind you every step of the way, even whilst you sit alone in jail wondering what will come next," one person wrote on a blog called OslersWeb.

Mikovits' attorney, Lois Hart, wrote in a statement last week in reaction to the lawsuit that Mikovits is innocent and her "integrity goes to the bone."

"She did not take anything from her office or laboratory," Hart wrote.

Mikovits' rise began in 2006, when she was hired as director of research by the fledgling Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, Nev. The institute, known as WPI, was started by a wealthy Nevada couple whose daughter was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS.

Not long after she arrived, Mikovits' team announced a breakthrough. The scientists said they had found evidence of a retrovirus called XMRV significantly more often in the blood of patients diagnosed with CFS than in blood from healthy peers. The journal Science published their paper online Oct. 8, 2009.

"It was an incredibly proud day," Mikovits told the Tribune in 2010. "I got calls from around the world. Dubai, China, you name it."

But as the Tribune reported, Mikovits and others quickly galloped ahead of the findings, which had not been replicated by other scientists. Though she lacked published data to back her up, Mikovits began tying XMRV to autism and other mysterious disorders. A lab offered an XMRV blood test. Patients took antiretroviral drugs meant for HIV patients.

At the same time, other scientists began reporting that they could not find evidence of the retrovirus in the blood of patients with CFS — or in anyone else's. Researchers wondered publicly whether lab contamination could explain Mikovits' results, and this summer one scientific team published evidence that XMRV was, indeed, a lab contaminant.

Mikovits vehemently denied contamination had occurred and attacked scientists unable to replicate her findings. "Some are not trying in completely good faith," she said in a 2010 interview with the Tribune.

Then, a study published in September showed that the WPI could not reliably find evidence of XMRV in the blood of patients. On Sept. 29, WPI fired Mikovits, according to court filings, and Science said a few days later that it was investigating allegations of data manipulation.

On Nov. 7, shortly after the WPI sued Mikovits, a Nevada district court judge signed a temporary restraining order prohibiting her from destroying, altering or deleting any "misappropriated property."

The WPI also reported the lab notebooks and other materials as stolen to the police force of the University of Nevada at Reno, which issued a warrant for Mikovits' arrest Nov. 17, according to police chief Adam Garcia.

Mikovits was arrested Friday in California on felony charges of being a fugitive from justice, according to the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

"We sincerely hope that this serious matter is resolved quickly and that the stolen materials are returned unaltered to the WPI," institute founder Annette Whittemore said.

Detailed logs of experiments, lab notebooks are key in disputes over data like the one involving the work published in Science. "When there is a dispute, the notebook is crucial to figuring out what actually happened," said Columbia University virologist Vincent Racaniello.

Some patients reacted to the arrest by condemning Whittemore and her husband, Harvey, toasted until recently as heroes.

But the WPI has been victimized as well, wrote Cort Johnson, who runs the website Phoenix Rising. "I'm sure (they) had a huge emotional investment in that data. That is what, after all, they hoped could cure their daughter."